By Peter Vogt

Recently, the following message was posted to the College Recruiter message board on Electronic Recruiting Exchange, an information and networking web site for recruiters and HR professionals. The participant -- who was self-employed -- had an off-the-beaten-path question...

"What should I tell my graduating daughter about job hunting?"

Here's the participant's original message, followed by my response. I hope you find it insightful-and helpful!

What Should I Tell My College-Graduating Daughter?

Being dyed-in-the-wool self-employed for all of my working life, I'm finding myself in the awkward position of giving my daughter advice on the subject of finding a job!

She's graduating from the University of Cincinnati next month and will be looking for a job. She's a Criminal Justice major with a 3.2 GPA. She tells me she doesn't want to work for anybody. Uhhh … I wonder where she gets that.

Anyway, I don't think it would be a bad idea to work for someone (for a while anyway-long enough to appreciate what it offers and what it doesn't), but I am fully aware she will make her own decisions. She's done names sourcing for me throughout her college career and doesn't really care to do that (darn!). She's also slung hash and babysat two small boys for a couple of years.

What I'm looking for here is … what should I tell her? What should she be doing as a new college graduate to find a job? Is there anything she should be doing that others don't usually do that might give her some advantage?

I'm a neophyte at this part 'cause I've "never had a real job"! Goodness gracious, I wish I had a nickel for every time I've heard that!

Thanks for your advice. It's always better coming from outside than from Mom.

;-)

Maureen

Hi Maureen,

I'm a career counselor who specializes in working with college students and, especially, recent grads. Here are a few thoughts for you, in no particular order of importance:

1. Another respondent's tip to encourage your daughter to visit the UC career center is an excellent one. That would be good advice no matter where your daughter went to school.
2. As another respondent said, encourage your daughter to stay out of grad school unless and until she has a specific, purposeful reason for going. Far too many new grads go to graduate school not knowing what else to do, and thinking grad school will be the magic bullet that an undergraduate degree is not. They then often find, of course, that a grad degree isn't a magic bullet either-and so they still don't know what to do, only now they have even more money and energy invested in their schooling.

3. Encourage your daughter to work on gaining some focus. In all of my many discussions with employers, one of the things that seems to scare them the most is the new college grad who says "I'll do anything" or "I'm open to most anything." The grad probably thinks he/she is being flexible and accommodating; but employers tend to perceive the grad as being unfocused and undecided. Not good in their eyes-too risky to hire.

   That's why it's so important for your daughter to go to the career center. A counselor there can help her focus so that she doesn't seem to be taking a shot at anything and everything-and so that she can set a goal to pursue a job she really wants.

4. Encourage your daughter to be open to getting some experience in a field of interest through an internship, temping, volunteering, or some similar sort of activity. Many new grads (and their parents) think that internships, for example, are for current college students only. Often, that's true-but not always. Sometimes companies will hire recent grads for internships.

   Your daughter will need to get some hands-on experience in whatever field she chooses if she wants to compete effectively against other new grads. Moreover, the more experience she gets, the more she learns for her own future self-employment endeavors (often about how not to run an organization!).

5. If your daughter really wants to stand out from the crowd, she should adopt a mindset of being willing and able to prove everything she claims to employers. Every new grad will say, for example, "I have great communication skills." (After all, who's going to say "I have rotten communication skills"?) If your daughter can prove her claims-with, for instance, a portfolio of documents and other materials showing what she's done in the area of communication-she'll stand out big time.

6. Finally, encourage your daughter to take some of the pressure off of herself if she's saying things like "what will I do with my life?" Often, new grads believe-implicitly or explicitly-that they need to figure out the next 40 years of their professional life ahead of time. None of us can do that; not even close.

   So encourage her to think not in terms of "what will I do with my life?" but instead "what will I do first?" or "what will I do next?"

   Similarly, encourage your daughter to break out of the now longstanding habit of referring to herself by what she's majoring in (i.e., "I'm a Criminal Justice major") and instead start thinking of herself as a set of skills and abilities. While employers are interested in a new grad's major, what they're really trying to discern is what skills and abilities that grad has-i.e., what the grad can do for the organization, no matter what his/her major is.

   So the more your daughter can get away from wrapping up her identity with her major, the better off she'll be. Help her pinpoint her skills and abilities.

I hope this gives you some ideas, Maureen. It's great that you're doing whatever you can to support your daughter. She needs that right now, I'm sure (even if she is independent!).

Good luck!

-- Peter Vogt is a partner with College to Career, Inc., a Minneapolis company that helps college students-and their parents-make career decisions with direction, through publications, seminars, and consulting services.